P. Webley and Sons Pryse revolver

An older commercial revolver, many similar handguns were
purchased by officers during wartime.

Perhaps best known as a manufacturer of handguns, the Webley
name's association with firearms extends to the early 19th century.
Brothers Philip and James Webley of Birmingham, England, were both
established firearms manufacturers by 1835, and after James' death
in 1856 and the closure of Samuel Colt's London factory in 1857,
the path was clear for Philip and his sons, Thomas William and
Henry, to enter and later to dominate the production of
factory-produced British handguns which featured interchangeable
parts.

Although of high quality, the hand-crafted nature of revolver
manufacture in Britain during this period meant that output
consistently lagged far behind demand. This situation began to
change in 1887, when Thomas William Webley obtained machinery
suitable to the task. The firm's military revolvers trace their
roots to an initial 1887 British government order for 10,000 P.
Webley & Sons double-action top-break Mark I Revolvers. These
six-shot auto ejectors with the distinctive bird's head butt and
lanyard ring were chambered for the .455 Webley caliber ball
cartridge, which remained the standard for Britain's military
forces until after the Second World War. Modifications to the basic
design in 1894 and 1897 led to the introduction of the Mark II and
Mark III revolvers. As their product line evolved, so too did the
company.

During 1897, P. Webley & Sons merged with gun-making firms
Richard Ellis & Son and W. & C. Scott and Sons, and the new
company continued in business under the banner of Webley &
Scott. The next revolver in this series and the first produced by
the new company was christened the Mark IV, which made its debut in
1899 during the Boer War in South Africa. The Mark IV revolver
incorporated some of the best features of its predecessors, and was
produced with a standard barrel length of 4 inches. Three, five,
and six-inch barrels were also available. The Mark V, nearly
identical to the earlier Mark IV except for its slightly larger
cylinder which was intended to safely accommodate smokeless powder
cartridges, was adopted on the eve of the Great War.

In early 1915, the Mark VI came into service. Unlike earlier
Webley Mark revolvers, the Mark VI featured a square-butt grip and
a dull finish that was less reflective than the blued finish
previously seen on the firm's military sidearms. Many
commercially-produced Webleys were manufactured as well, and these
differ in their lack of military property marks and in the presence
of commercial proofs.

British government production of the Mark VI began in 1921 at
the Royal Small Arms Factory at Enfield Lock after cancellation of
cancellation of the Webley & Scott contracts, and, with the
exception of external markings, these models were identical to the
Webley-manufactured examples. The rugged Mark VI saw action in the
hands of British troops through two World Wars, from the trenches
of the Western Front to the beaches of Dunkirk and Normandy, the
drive across North Africa, up the Italian boot, and through France
and Germany, and as well as in the jungles of the Pacific. Some
continued to soldier on through the Korean Conflict.

Many surplus Webleys found their way to the United States over a
ten-year period beginning in the mid-1950s, where their low price
made them attractive to thousands for hunting, recreational
shooting, and home defense. Most were converted to .45 ACP by
milling the cylinder and extractor to accommodate half-moon clips,
making them functionally similar to the Colt and Smith & Wesson
Model 1917 revolvers used by the U.S. military. The .455 Webley
cartridge also underwent an evolution during this period. The
original Boxer-primed Mark I brass cartridge case measured
7/8-inches in length and contained a black powder charge topped by
a 265-grain round-nose lead bullet. The later Mark II was slightly
shorter, and was Berdan-primed and charged with Cordite. The Mark
III "man-stopper" cartridge used a flat-faced hollow point bullet,
while the Mark IV and Mark V propelled a flat-faced solid
wadcutter-type bullet.

The only difference between these two was the composition of the
bullet, with the Mark IV projectile made up of a lead-tin alloy,
while the Mark V was a lead-antimony mix. The Mark VI, with its
metal-jacketed bullet, was adopted in 1939 to comply with the Hague
Convention. While not as powerful as the American .45 ACP, the fat
.455 with its muzzle velocity of 600-700 feet per second, was an
adequate military cartridge. The Marks were not the only notable
revolvers to be produced by Webley & Scott.

In the summer of 1901, an automatic revolver designed by Colonel
George Vincent Fosbery appeared on the market, and a second model
made its debut during the following year. Both were available in a
six-shot version chambered for the standard British military .455
caliber, and an eight-round type which chambered the .38 Colt
Automatic cartridge.

Fosbery had taken out a patent on his design as early as 1895,
when he showed how recoil from a fired cartridge could be harnessed
to cock the hammer and rotate the cylinder of a Colt Single Action
Army revolver. Rejected by Colt, Fosbery applied his method to the
Webley & Scott Mark II military revolver. The Webley-Fosbery
automatic revolver employed a grooved cylinder in which the upper
portion of the revolver, which included the barrel and cylinder,
moved independently of the lower frame. When fired, the top was
forced rearward during recoil, which cocked the hammer for the next
shot. A stud similar to a conventional cylinder stop engaged the
cylinder groove, and the cylinder rotated half-way between chambers
during this cycle. As the upper frame returned to its forward
position under spring tension, the cylinder completed its rotation,
aligning the next cartridge with the barrel and hammer.

The two-piece moving construction also had the advantage of
reducing recoil. A thumb-actuated release lever located on the left
grip opened the action, which pivoted upward and ejected spent
cartridges. Reloading was accomplished either singly, or through
the use of a quick-loader, which contained multiple cartridges for
single-step reloads. Although rugged and reliable, and both faster
and more accurate than conventional revolvers, the Webley-Fosbery
was larger than both the standard Webley revolvers and most
military automatics then in use. Offered to the U.S. Army for
testing in 1906, these arms, with their ingenious design, were
rejected in favor of the John Browning-designed automatic pistol.
Even though they were never formally adopted by Britain's War
Office, some did find their way to the front with British officers
during the First World War, and commercial models were available
for another twenty years.

The Webley-Fosbery achieved a certain notoriety in the Dashiell
Hammett's novel, The Maltese Falcon, when detective Sam Spade
correctly identified the firearm discovered at the scene of Miles
Archer's murder for police officers unfamiliar with its design.
Webley & Scott also produced and marketed auto-loading pistols
in addition to their revolver line.

The Model 1913 Webley-Scott .455 automatic was adopted by the
Royal Navy and Royal Marines during that year. Although its sights
were better than most European autoloaders, the Model 1913 was
large and clumsy in its design, which weighed against it as a
military pistol. In addition, these arms performed well when
properly cleaned and oiled, but were so unreliable under combat
conditions that they were subsequently recalled and replaced with
revolvers or U.S.-made Colt Model 1911 pistols chambered for the
British .455 cartridge. Despite their shortcomings on the field of
battle, Webley & Scott automatics enjoyed success among
Britain's competitive shooting community, where they won the
prestigious Granet Cup.

The firm's revolvers also won all prizes in rapid shooting
competition at the 1913 British National Rifle Association meeting
at Bisley. An earlier Webley automatic pistol design which had been
developed by William Whiting found favor with the London
Metropolitan Police and the London City Police, both of whom
adopted this pistol in .32 caliber in 1911. Aside from revolver and
pistol production, the Webley name was also well-known for its
association with other types of arms.

The company remained in business through wartime expansions and
later relocation to new facilities in 1958. Webley & Scott was
subsequently acquired by the Windsor Group during that same year. A
1965 purchase brought the renowned British gun-making firm of W. W.
Greener under Windsor Group ownership, and in 1973, both were
absorbed by the Harris & Sheldon Group.

Within a few years, revolver production was limited to the Mark
IV .38 caliber Police and Pocket Models, and the .32 caliber Pocket
Model. Six years later, the company's shotgun production was
established as a separate company under the name of W & C
Scott, Ltd., and the firm's association with shotgun manufacture
ended entirely with the sale of that unit to Holland & Holland
in 1985. By then, Webley & Scott had been acquired by the
Pakistani firm of Ghulam Muhammad Dossul Engineering Limited of
Karachi, and all production facilities were relocated to new
facilities in Pakistan. Webley & Scott has also been a
manufacturer of airguns for over 70 years, and these low-power
sporting arms are now the once-famous gun maker's only remaining
product.